Method of finishing the ends of corks.



METHOD OF FINISHING THE ENDS OF CORKS.

APPLICATION FILED FEB. 12, 1912.

1,049,988, Patented Jan.'?, 1913.

VIII'IIIIIIIIIIIL INVENTOR ALEXANDEH BOGDHINFFY COLUMBIA PLANOURAPH C0,,WASHINGTON. u. c.

ICE.

ALEXANDER BOGDANFFY, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., ASSIGNOR TO THE INTERNATIONAL CORK 00., OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, A CORPORATION OF NEW YORK.

METHOD OF FINISHING THE ENDS OF CORKS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Jan. 7., 1913.

Application filed February 12, 1912. Serial No. 677,203.

To all 107mm 1'6 may concern.

Be it known that I, ALEXANDER Booniinrrr, a subject of the King of Hungary, and resident of the city of New York, in the county of Kings and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Methods of Finishing the Ends of Corks, of which the following is a specification.

The present invention relates to a method of finishing the ends of corks.

It is a well known fact that cork wood is penetrated throughout its body by veins containing a powdery matter which is usually darker in color than the cork wood. These veins run in substantially parallel planes through the body of the cork wood, and the corks are blocked out or cut from the wood in such a manner that their longitudinal aXes run substantially at right angles to the planes in which said veins are situated. On the end surfaces of the cork such veins appear as clefts filled with powdery dark material. To prevent this powdery material from coming into contact with the contents of a bottle. it has been customary heretofore to finish the end surfaces of the corks by cutting the said ends on which clefts of the character above described appear as long until a clear cut is obtained, that is to say to a level in which there is no cleft. Corks, which are to be inserted into the neck of the bottle by hand, have to be finished or cleaned on one of their ends only, but as nowadays bottling and stoppering is usually performed by machines, and the corks are fed to the stoppering machine by mechanical means, it is obvous that both ends of the cork must be finished in the manner above specified, as it cannot be predetermined which end of the same will enter the neck of the bottle in the process of closing the bottle by means of a cork.

Bottlers, in giving cork manufacturers their orders for corks, usually call for a predetermined length. In cutting the corks, cork strips are used, the thickness of which corresponds to the required length of the corks to be out. As, however, after the cut ting operation the finishing operation is to be performed, these corks will be shortened more or less according to the quality of the cork strips; and, of course, the exact lengths of the corks so obtained cannot be predetermined for the reason that the veins in the cork wood run in different planes, and it is impossible to know what thickness of cork wood will have to be removed from the end surfaces of the corks in order to obtain clean ends.

The object of the present invention is to obviate these defects, and to provide a proc ess by means of which the ends of the corks can be cleaned without shortening their lengths, whereby corks of exactly the same lengths will be produced from strips of cork wood of the same thickness.

One of the many possible apparatus for carrying out the process forming the subject matter of the present application for Letters Patent is illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which t- Figure 1 is a front elevation of a machine for carrying out the process; Fig. 2 is a plan view thereof; Fig. 3 is a side elevation of a cork showing the veins running therethrough; Fig. 4 is a plan View of the said cork; and Fig. 5 is a sectional detail of construction of the machine shown in Figs. 1 and 2 of the drawings.

In the drawings, the numeral 10 indicates a horizontal table, supported by legs or standards 11, 11, which are braced by struts 12, 12. Upon the table is mounted an electric motor 13, to the shaft 14. of which is attached a grinding wheel 15, for instance an emery wheel. The peripheral portion of this wheel is provided with a knife edge 16, as clearly shown in Fig. 5 of the drawings. A protecting hood 17 is arranged over the grinding wheel 15, and serves to prevent the wheel from injuring the operator. In front of the grinding wheel is secured to the table 10 a standard 18, upon which is shiftably arranged a substantially horizontal cork-support 19. This supportconsists of a bar 20, provided with a bore 21 fitting the said standard, and with a longitudinal slot 22 which passes through said bore. A thumb screw 23, engaging a screw threaded hole 24 near to the end of said support, serves to clamp the same upon said standard 18. The position of the support 19 relative to the center of the grinding wheel 15 can be easily varied by means of this arrangement. A hand-rest, in the form of an inclined board 25, is attached to the table 10.

The process, forming the subject matter of the present invention, is carried out on this machine in the following manner: The

operator takes hold of a cork 26, and, upon finding that one or the other end of the same is not clean, that is to say that it is provided with clefts 27, places the same in an inclined position upon the cork-support 19, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2 of the drawings in such a position that its clefts are arranged in substantially vertical planes. In shifting the cork upon the cork-support into a position that one of the clefts comes to lie in the plane of the knife edge of the grinding wheel, and by forcing then the cork against said knife edge, the powdery matter in said cleft will be removed by the rotary grinding edge of the wheel without affecting in any way whatever the length of the cork, in other words the powdery matter will be abraded from the cleft by grinding or scraping action. The other clefts which appear on one or both ends of the cork are then cleaned in the same manner, whereby the finishing of the cork is completed.

If the cork is held against the grinding edge of the wheel 15 for a substantial time, not only will the powdery matter be removed from the cleft, but the walls of the cleft will be abraded to some extent.

What I claim is A method of finishing cork ends which consists in removing the powdery matter from the clefts in the ends of a cork by grinding action in planes substantially parallel to the longitudinal axis of the cork.

Signed at New York, in the county of New York and State of New York this 24th day of January, A. D. 1912.

ALEXANDER BOGDANFFY.

Witnesses SIGMUND l-Innzoe, S. BIRNBAUM.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Gommissioner of Eatents, Washington, D. U. 

